MOSCOW, July 30. /ITAR-TASS/. Moscow City court has passed a guilty verdict on four members and leaders of a Moscow cell of the Islamic fundamentalist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami.

They have been sentenced to seven to eleven years in a high security jail.

The court said the defendants’ guilt had been fully proven in the course of trial.

The four men on trial were Azizbek Inamov, 37, Shamil Ismailov, 40, Saipula Kurbanov, 34, and Zikrullokhon Rakhmonkhodzhayev (38). Depending on the role each of them played in the organization they have been sentenced to seven to eleven years in jail.

The court found them guilty of “involvement in the setting up or involvement in the activities of an organization, the operations of which have been prohibited by a legal ruling of the court in connection with the organization’s extremist activity.”

Other charges concern “preparations for a violent seizure of power and violent change of the Russian Federation’s constitutional system”.

Inamov is to serve a jail term of eleven years and to pay a fine of 200,000 rubles. Ismailov will stay for eight years in jail and will pay a fine of 100,000 rubles and spend eight years in jail, while Rakhomhdzhoyev is facing seven years in jail and a fine of 50,000 rubles.

As it passed the verdict, the court took account of mitigating circumstances, like fair characterizations of the four men by their employers.

In the meantime, the four men had recognized their participation in Hizbb ut-Tahrir but they do no find themselves to be guilty.

Their defense plans filing an appeal.